“What’s wrong?” Petur asked bluntly as court adjourned for the morning. They’d made a habit of listening to petitions together when Petur had first came to Bekkon, in part to get people used to his authority as well as to get his assistance in actually ruling. Petur was the only one of them with any real experience at it, thanks to his role in Riyale, and Sy was always grateful for his perspective. Nothing ever got past Petur.
Sy wasn’t always grateful for that part, actually. “What do you mean?” he prevaricated as he took off his crown and rubbed at the line it left around his head. Everyone else had filed out of the throne room, so it was just the two of them. Jon had taken their much-recovered daughter to the garden to play, and Deyvid was out working with the cavalry. Come to think of it, this might be the first time Sy and Petur had been alone together for a week. “Nothing is wrong.”
“You’re such a bad liar.”
“No, I’m not!” Sy realized what he’d just said and backtracked. “I mean, I’m not lying! Nothing is wrong.”
Petur arched one eyebrow, a gesture he alone of the three of them had mastered. “You’ll forgive me if I note that you’ve barely been able to meet my eyes all morning.”
“I’m just thinking,” Sy replied.
“What about?”
Sy huffed. “Why do you always do this?”
“Do what?”
Ask questions I don’t know the answers to!“Push,” he went with.
Petur didn’t take offense. Instead, he smiled. “I’ve been married to you for three years, sweetheart,” he said. “Forgive me if I’ve learned a thing or two about how best to approach your moods in that time.”
Oh, his moods?Moods?“I’m not in a mood.”
“You are. It started as thoughtful, and I was happy to leave you alone with it then, but it’s turned pensive over the past day or so, and that’s the beginning of a descent into obsessiveness that I’m just as happy to help you avoid.”
“Feel free to go do something else if I’m being distracting,” Sy snarked.
Petur sighed, then got up out of his chair and came over to Sy’s. He sat down on the arm and leaned in so he could pressa kiss to the top of Sy’s head. “Darling.” He kissed his cheek. “Beloved.” He kissed the side of his neck. “Dear husband.” He finally pressed a kiss to his lips, and Sy couldn’t help but respond to the heat of Petur’s mouth, the gentle caress of his thumb as it swept over Sy’s collarbone. “Please talk to me,” Petur said, and Sy heard that for the plea it was.
“I’m all right,” he said honestly. “Just … it seems a little incredible to me that we’ve managed to get along as well as we all have when you and Deyvid were so happy together before me. You were content, just the two of you, and then you were forced to let me in.”
“Darling—”
“And I know you don’t regret it anymore,” Sy continued doggedly. “I know you love me, I do. I just, I wonder if you would have been happier if you’d stayed a pair, rather than …” He gestured awkwardly to himself.
Petur immediately shook his head. “We wouldn’t.”
“Petur, come on.”
“I’m serious.” He wrapped an arm around Sy’s shoulders and pulled him in closer. “I was content to run from reality for a long time, but the truth of the matter is that Deyvid and I could never have stayed a pair. Deyvid realized that long before I did; hells, he had hisownpolitical marriage before he ever met me. The thing I’d hoped for was always an impossibility, and after I got a good look at some of the people I might have ended up married to …” Petur shuddered. “Horrifying.”
“But if youhadn’thad to marry someone else, you would have been fine together.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’d have killed each other without the pressure of caring for a kingdom,” Petur rejoined, “which is the only circumstance that would have allowed for such a thing.
“But as long as we’re talking about impossibilities,” he went on, settling in against Sy’s throne, “let’s consider how thingscould have gone if I’d metyoufirst. If we’d been prepared to marry each other from the start, raised to it like so many royals are. Would we have gotten along?”
Without Deyvid to smooth things over? “Perhaps eventually,” Sy allowed with a little smile. “As long as we didn’t try to kill each other.”
“Now consider how things might have gone if you’d met Deyvid first.”
“He wouldn’t have wanted me,” Sy protested. “He’d have thought I was too young.”
“He thinks you’re gorgeous,” Petur said confidently. “He’s so sweet around you it’s ridiculous. He was never like that with me; hecouldn’tbe like that with me; I wouldn’t tolerate it. You give him an outlet for his need to dote on someone while I’m more of an outlet for his combative urges.
“And for me …” His eyes softened. “You challenge me to be the absolute best I can be, just so I can keep up with you. You’re far cleverer than I am, and yet you’ve given me real power in my role as your husband here when you could easily have kept it all for yourself.”
“I wouldn’t want to,” Sy protested.
